National group in Savannah to hear cemetery complaints

The leader of a national organization for cemetery and funeral rights plans to be in Savannah today, rallying the public to push for stronger consumer protection.

"We hope to bring some justice to the citizens of Savannah as well as to the state of Georgia," said Carolyn Jacobi, executive director of Eternal Justice Inc., a Maryland-based group for death-care rights.

All questions and concerns will be welcome, she said.

"I don't care if it's conditions at a cemetery or missing bodies, we want to document it all," Jacobi said.

In March, the Savannah Morning News documented complaints showing the state is failing to promptly investigate funeral homes and cemeteries on issues including cemeteries and burial records not properly maintained and failure to promptly file death certificates.

Jacobi said she will be focusing most of her efforts on recent complaints concerning the Savannah Cemetery Group, which operates several cemeteries locally, including Forest Lawn Memory Gardens and Magnolia Memorial Gardens.

She accuses the cemetery group of restraint on trade because it wants to require steel vaults for all its burials rather than concrete vaults.

The cemeteries are doing this, she contends, because steel vaults are more expensive and because the cemeteries' owner has "cornered the market" on providing steel vaults, which she said do not last as long.

One steel model available costs $1,950 - about $5,000 less than one of the most expensive concrete vaults sold - and has a warranty 22 years longer than the concrete model, Smith said.

"We only want what's best for our cemeteries and customers equally," he said. "We brought in a product that had been kept out of the Savannah market for 20 years."

That was to the sole benefit of concrete vault providers, he said.

Under Georgia law, Smith said, cemeteries are responsible for a product once it is in the ground.

"So because we have to be responsible for it, we can decide what product can be used in our cemeteries," Smith said. "Some cemeteries choose only concrete. Some require no vault.

"Steel is a 100 percent better product."

Jacobi also wants to encourage citizens to complain about the state's Cemetery Board, a newly created organization that handles public complaints about most cemeteries.

The Secretary of State's Office, which coordinates investigations by state agencies with the board - the disciplinary arm - told her it has only 40 complaints across the state, Jacobi said.

She believes consumers have far more complaints.

But Vicki Gavalas, director of communications for the Secretary of State's Office, said Friday that the Cemetery Board has 40 cases under active investigation across the state. On Tuesday, the state board plans to have its monthly meeting in Macon. Four of the cases before it concern the Savannah Cemetery Group.

But based on information Gavalas had available Friday, she did not believe any of the four cases concerned complaints about steel vaults.